Mutual Strikeouts
by myao3stories
Summary: A one-shot requested by anon.


Being dead is ironically difficult. Eridan always thought it was some great equalizer where the ghosts of the deceased would just float away into the void without a care in the world. Yet here he was, sitting in some memory of someone's looking over on a small hill a small group of doomed timeline friends looking like they're having fun.

"Ampurra?" Eridan turns when he hears the familiar voice of Nepeta. He didn't even notice her approaching, he chastised himself for it, but reasoned that she /was/ an oliveblood and those are quite sneaky. "What are you doing here?" He looks back to the group down below and sees a Nepeta with a Karkat.

"Oh, you know. Just lookin' down at a time where all of us are great friends and all. What are you doing here?" Eridan raised an eyebrow at her as she just sort of shruged. "You're not doin' the same, are you?"

"Well no, not purrticularly. I was just looking over at Karcat and 'myself'." She sat down next to him and looked over to it. "Are you here fur the fact that Feferi and yourself?"

"Basically. This is fuckin' BS, you know? Why couldn't it have been us who got who we wanted? I know 'we' did, but still…" Eridan shook his head. Complaining wouldn't really help anyone anymore, hell, it was a factor in quite a bit of their situation to begin with. He got to his feet and turns away. "I'm gonna go. You can stick around if you want."

He started walking away and Nepeta stood up and started following him. "Hey, wait! You can't just walk away now!"

"Why not? It isn't like we hung out a whole fuckin' lot. Last I heard, you found me creepy. Seems like you should be avoidin' me."

Nepeta slapped his back as she caught up to him, rather roughly. "Yeah, beclaws being called a kittycat shipper cave girl by a creeper is what drives me to hang out with you."

Eridan rolled his eyes. "What kinda half-assed pitch flirtin' is that?"

"I'm not flirting with you like that! I'm just saying that trolls from the alpha timeline should hang out more since we're dead!" Her claws dug into his back slightly. "Besides, you might get better and stop being so creepy."

"Only if you stop tryin' to fuckin' ship all of us in those dumbass quadrants."

"I don't always do that! I hunt sometimes, you could apurreciate that."

"Sure, sure. I guess it's hard to deny the fact you killed them with your claws. We're a pair of purrfect hunters."

"Did you just use a cat pun?" Nepeta cocked her head at him, grinning. "I thought you only took puns from people you liked, hee hee."

"Shut up. I'm just tryin' to stay on your good side. Your claws are still in my back and I don't fancy bleeding again."

"Whatefur, I don't want to make you bleed anyways. The worst thing you did to me was hit on me the wrong way."

"Right, because there's a right way. I should've known you'd deny me since you were flushed for Karkat."

"Yeah, well… I'm starting to move on from him. There are plenty of timelines I'm with him, moping about me purrsonally." Eridan huffed at that, though he'd be lying if he said he didn't feel the same way. He still wanted to find Feferi to apologize to her, but he had yet to find her. "Come on, Ampurra, smile a bit."

He glowered at her as they passed into another bubble. Certainly far from the fields and hills of wherever the fuck and back onto the meteor, or at least the memory of it. They were in one of the many hallways so he leaned against the wall, folding his arms.

"Quit being such a stick in the mud." Nepeta frowned up at him. "We're in this together right now, aren't we? Alpha timeliners need to stick together."

"You ain't lettin' this go, are you?"

Nepeta shook her head, grinning at him. "Tell me something, Ampurra, were you serious fur your flush crush on me?"

"I don't fuckin' know at this point. I was in a bad place still tryin' to live up to Dualscar and all the pressures of Alternia." He gives a small shrug. "For a cave troll, you ain't that bad lookin', I guess. Why do you ask?"

"Oh I was just curious. I mean, even I can see when a ship's sunk…"

"I get it, we can't be together, jeez. If you wanna hang out more, why don't you put it more bluntly?"

She curled her tail and scowled at him. "I meant with me and Karcat and you and Fefurry." He glowered at her as she continued, "I'm just offurring some company fur a bit."

"Fine, whatever, just please don't try to get me into those kiddie roleplays of yours."

"Yeah, beclaws you never roleplayed?" She smirked at him.

"Shut up, that was when I had a fuckin' great kismesis."

She blinked at him. "Oh yeah, I furgot you and Vhiskers had a black relationship… why did you two even break up?"

"I don't know. She said she was bored of me." He always thought that was a bullshit reason. Sure he wasn't good at those stupid games and their even stupider rules, but he was still an able fighter. He killed lusii for crying out loud! "Sollux would have been an okay rival, but that's completely sunk. What about you and Eq?"

"Oh he's off with one of the Aradiabots, I think. I don't know, we haven't really talked…"

"He's so fuckin' creepy with those robots…" He sighed. "If you wanna hang out a bit, we can do somethin' together."

Nepeta beamed at him and grabbed his arm, wrapping hers around it and started to walk off. "Come on then, we can go to my block for a bit. I still have some tea sets, or the memory of them at least!"

Eridan started to crack a smile at her passion. He guessed it would at least take the edge off of everything. She wasn't that bad looking and tolerated his presence. Who knows, maybe things are actually looking up for now.


End file.
